16 ms·

I agree with what the article says about sharing data between applications, this really is one of the biggest pain points of iOS right now. Fortunately, it look

by w0utert 14y ago

I agree with what the article says about sharing data between applications, this really is one of the biggest pain points of iOS right now. Fortunately, it looks like Apple will finally address this in the future, iOS 6 already has infrastructure in place to allow for remote view controllers that (in theory) should allow any application to register itself to handle certain data and events. Right now seems to be only used privately, for example to launch the mail application from other applications, but my guess is that iOS 7 will add public API's for other applications to do the same. Whether this means you can change default applications like Maps etc. I don't know, but the way Apple handled the (lack of) public-transit directions in Apple Maps suggests they are starting to be more flexible about default application handlers. That said, I wasn't really impressed by any of the other points the article makes. It starts out by saying 'Android on the Nexus 4 is better in almost every aspect', but besides the sharing thing it doesn't make a case for anything else. Some half-hearted observation that 'sometimes it even appears like rendering is smoother on the Nexus 4' and 'not all Android applications look like crap anymore' and that's about it. Oh and of course you can 'customize everything' and here you have 4 examples of the most ugly homescreens I have ever seen on a mobile phone. Hardly a clear-cut case of 'better in almost every aspect'. Looks like it's more a matter of preference than an objective evaluation on which of the 2 platforms is 'better'.

jvzr 14y ago
I was going to say the same things. Hopefully, there has been some serious work done on iOS 7 and it'll probably address most of the OP's concerns. However, I do hope they introduce none of these customization shenanigans. I don't care for widgets (nor do I want another icon or thing I cannot remove from my homescreen). If the base OS is sufficiently good UI-wise, there is no reason ever to need to customize its looks besides the wallpaper (e.g. OS X).
- knightni 14y ago
  I disagree - widgets are enormously important to me, and were the deciding factor in my choosing an android phone. I'm quite forgetful, and I have a tendency to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others. Widgets allow me to display important information on my home screen that will be shown to me every time I look at the phone. This means that I can have a list of (for example) upcoming birthdays on my phone that I see over and over again, enough that I will eventually see the reminder at a point when I am in a position to do something about it. Alarms are useless by comparison, because I will inevitably be busy with something else when they go off. Calendars/todo apps are equally useless to me, because they require me to remember to open up an app all the time. I realise my use case is relatively niche, but I imagine there's a lot of different niche users out there that benefit from customisability.
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    I do the same thing. I have a birthday calendar and todo list on my home screen, it's immensely helpful. Even more so now that I can also have it on my lock screen.
  - taligent 14y ago
    Upcoming birthdays and other calendar events appear on my iPhone in the lock/notification screen so no different to Android in that respect. And as of iOS6 it automatically syncs birthdays with Facebook.
    - knightni 14y ago
      My understanding was that at least on the lock screen there was no easy way to distinguish between different calendars - I want birthday reminders to show up persistently for at least a week before the event, which is obviously undesirable for most other events. If the lock screen gets/has that functionality, I'm not sure what the real difference between that and a widget is - except that mine displays on the home screen while yours displays on the lock screen.
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      And those things only work in cases where Apple has made special agreements. It's going to look silly when Facebook and Twitter are no longer things and iOS rushed to integrate them instead of just opening an API to enable it.
  - jvzr 14y ago
    But see, you have analyzed that you desperately needed some kind of birthday widget and that iOS didn't suit your particular needs. You switched over or went directly to Android. That's fine, you have an alternative and you seem happy with it. However, I despise such things. I've analyzed that I wouldn't stand using Android for those reasons, and that I'm better off with iOS. I go with Apple's motto: "there's an app for that".
    - revelation 14y ago
- vacri 14y ago
  If the base OS is sufficiently good UI-wise, there is no reason ever to need to customize its looks besides the wallpaper I take it you share Jobs' opinion on clothes? Same jeans, sneakers, turtleneck every day. Hey, it's perfectly functional, why would anyone want to vary things or look different? I mean, everyone has the same use-case, right?
  - jvzr 14y ago
    Actually, now that you mention it, I pretty much wear the same-looking clothes all year long. I have one brand and a favorite cut for each of my garments and I stick to it. I even have 20 pairs of identical black socks for easy selection in the morning. I like how iOS and OS X force us into one particular set of minimalistic UI. I despise skeuomorphism and I'm eager to see it go away on iOS. But I realize others may want to customize their OS, and for that they have to be grateful to have alternatives, namely Windows/Unix and Android/WP.
Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
I agree, though I think some of the "not all Android applications look like crap" type stuff is just pointing out that some of the things people have used to beat Android with in the past are no longer true which is fair enough.
buster 14y ago
Well, there are quite beautiful homescreens and widgets for android. You don't have to use them but i would say that iPhone users are just missing out on something. Sure, you are used to just take what Apple gives you and praise that but i couldn't.. I want high customizability and i love to change the entire phone setup when i get bored by the current setup.. or try out a new home screen once in a while. It's painless and fun for me to do :) But surely, what really is missing on iOS is the whole intent/sharing system. It's just painful to try to interact between several apps on my iPad. Btw. One of the more beautiful homescreens is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tsf.shell https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tsf.shell Or widgets: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.levelup.beautifulwidgets https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.levelup.be... Those are things that i simply can't get on iOS and i'm used to it. I want that on my mobile.
- taligent 14y ago
  And both of those are quintessentially Android features. I doubt you will ever see them implemented like that on iOS without jailbreaking. I personally don't want anything like that. I would rather Apple just allow widgets in the notifications section and have live icons.
- pithon 14y ago
  Also: http://www.reddit.com/r/androidthemes/ http://www.reddit.com/r/androidthemes/
  - buster 14y ago
    That's a good point and demonstrates very well how far you can customize.
- mannkind 14y ago
  Those two examples... wow. A cluttered, unusable homescreen (is a ridiculous 3D cylinder of icons really an option?) and a weather widget where most of the text is unreadable.
  - 14y ago
greggman 14y ago
I haven't read the article but I was an iPhone3 for a year, nexus 1 for a year, nexus s for a year and now iPhone 4S for a year. Things I still miss: I still miss that android apps can download in the background so for example when I wake up I the morning any new podcasts I'm subscribed to are already on the phone. Contrast to iOS6 where I have to remember to manually run the app. Which generally means I only run it just as I'm about to get in the car. I then sit in my entry way for 2-6 minutes waiting for my podcast app to download I miss that apps can register for more events and act on them. For example any app can register to get an event when a new photo is saved. It can then upload, in the background, that photo. That means I can install one Flickr app, one g+ app and one fb app and the photos get uploaded to all 3 services no matter which app I use to take the photo. Contrast to ios6 where either every photo app has to have built in uploading options for every service I could possibly want. Or, I have to manually run the specific app for each service. I miss auto app updating. I don't have as many apps as most of my friends on my iPhone but it seems like every day or every other day there's a number on the app store bugging me to update stuff. having to manually update is a distraction, chore, and annoyance I don't need. Of course I miss being able to choose various default apps. I want Camera+ to be my default camera. I want Google maps to be my default maps. I want gmail to be my default mail app. I want a different apps to be my default music player and video player. I want chrome to be my default browser. I miss being able to customize my desktop and lock screen. Not just adding widgets but changing it to use other apps. See http://slidescreenhome.com http://slidescreenhome.com as one example. I miss geeky things like being able to run an ssh tunnel in one app and use that tunnel in another app. That said I'm still on iPhone. There's still plenty of things I like about iPhone over Android. I don't see myself switching back for at least a few more generations.
- lanelio 14y ago
  "I haven't read the article but..." So it's come to this on HN...
  - Tyrant505 14y ago
    No.. it was just stated instead of not.
vacri 14y ago
Oh and of course you can 'customize everything' and here you have 4 examples of the most ugly homescreens I have ever seen on a mobile phone. Good grief, you speak of personlisation like it's a bug and not a feature. I personally hate the iOS window-dressing. You have this sleek-looking bit of hardware, but the OS looks plastic and Fisher-Price, with safe and chunky buttons to give to your kid with no sharp edges. The way you speak, it sounds like you would deny me my preference for something different because you think it's ugly. What about those who don't think the default skins look good? Why isn't it a good feature that we can customise the way things look? I really don't understand the Apple-spawned fanboy cult that considers personalisation to be a bad thing - especially since they once had a successful marketing campaign based around personalising your hardware with the coloured macs.
- Ntrails 14y ago
  I am happy with the apple default. I would not be happy with the default android layout, and I have tried to be. I don't spend my time changing my desktop items. I don't customise my chrome borders, fiddle with rainmeter, etc. I don't even change my desktop background from the first one I got years and years ago. This may not be a very "hacker" attitude, but for me I just want function by default. Personalisation is never a bad thing, but having a worse default is. Not wanting to faff with your display to get something acceptable is entirely within reason. In each case it is a choice, and the ability to personalise your screen is very much a subjective benefit.
  - bpatrianakos 14y ago
    I'm totally with you on this. On both my iPhone and Macbook I don't change the desktop background or much else from the day I get it. There are other things like the terminal colors and such that I do but for the most part I leave the design alone. Now, customization is obviously very important to people and if it is then that's a great reason to switch to a platform other than iOS. But is it a reason that iOS is worse or better than some other platform? Absolutely not. There is room in this world for things to just be different rather than better or worse.
- w0utert 14y ago
mmahemoff 14y ago
Yes, inter-app communication is a major difference for developers. On iOS, apps will say "Supports Twitter and Facebook" and the developers have hand-written the integrations; on Android, the app integrates with whatever the user has installed and the developer does no work at all to integrate with any specific service or app. So it's a win for developers as well as users.
- reidmain 14y ago
  Twitter and Facebook is integrated at a OS level with iOS. A few lines of code gets me access to the user's accounts (with their permission of course).
  - mmahemoff 14y ago
    Bad examples :). Try Buffer and App.Net instead.
    - reidmain 14y ago
      So what happens in Android with those apps? Your app opens your App.net client of choice?
      - mmahemoff 14y ago
        A bit more generic than that; there's no global setting where user says "this is my preferred App.Net app". When user hits Share in any app (many apps provide such a feature), a menu appears with all available apps user might want to share to. Any app can opt in to be in the menu, based on MIME type of what's being shared. http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/02/share-with-intents.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/02/share-with-in...
        reidmain 14y ago
        Does it take you out of the app or bring up a part of the other app which you use to share and then dismiss and you are back exactly where you were before you attempted to share?
Cor 14y ago
"Oh and of course you can 'customize everything' and here you have 4 examples of the most ugly homescreens I have ever seen on a mobile phone." Agreed. I really don't like the look of most Android customisations. I think default Android is pretty gorgeous, though. My homescreen currently looks like this - http://i1.minus.com/iidfIgCTZsXEX.png http://i1.minus.com/iidfIgCTZsXEX.png The only thing I've added is the widget: everything else is stock. I'm very happy with the way it looks.
- MichaelJW 14y ago
  What is that widget? It looks great!
  - Cor 14y ago
    You can get it here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.pooley.betaWeather#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiZnIucG9vbGV5LmJldGFXZWF0aGVyIl0 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.pooley.beta.... You'll also need to install the 'Ultimate Clock Widget' app from here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.vineetsirohi.customwidget&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImluLnZpbmVldHNpcm9oaS5jdXN0b213aWRnZXQiXQ. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.vineetsiroh.... Enjoy!
    - bane 14y ago
      The coolest bit is that I can install both of these on my phone and tablet (which is back at home and not with me) right now via the links you just shared without having to interact with either device.
      - micampe 14y ago
        What's funny is that this feature gets often pointed out as one of the cool Android exclusives, but iOS has it too: you just need to turn on Automatic Downloads in the store settings, it works for apps as well as media and books purchased from the store. It's more limited, in that it will download all purchases made on any other device (or iTunes) connected to the same account, but it seems like very few people are aware of it.
sigkill 14y ago
>Android on the Nexus 4 is better in almost every aspect et al I assume he made that kind of statements because previously his opinion of android was the buggy and extreme unresponsive early builds.
masklinn 14y ago
> iOS 6 already has infrastructure in place to allow for remote view controllers that (in theory) should allow any application to register itself to handle certain data and events. For those who want more information on that, http://oleb.net/blog/2012/10/remote-view-controllers-in-ios-6/ http://oleb.net/blog/2012/10/remote-view-controllers-in-ios-... (note: it's a 3-part series). As far as I understand, it doesn't provide for an application "register[ing] itself to handler certain data and events", which would probably be an extension to UIActivityView and UIActivity[0]. Remove View Controllers provide two features of interest, one of which could work with UIActivity for sharing: * An application or framework providing views to an other one (said view could be invoked by a UIActivity of some sort, so that the Facebook application would provide a "Share on Facebook" remote view and the corresponding activity, a sharing application would invoke the activity view, then display the correct remote view upon selection by the user) * Isolated cross-process communication between the embedding application and the embedded view, which allows different security settings (and thus things like JIT-ed UIWebView, or more simply a twitter remote viewcontroller being able to use the data the Twitter app has access to without leaking it to third parties) [0] http://oleb.net/blog/2012/09/the-state-of-sharing-in-ios-6/ http://oleb.net/blog/2012/09/the-state-of-sharing-in-ios-6/
- nicholassmith 14y ago
  Interestingly it seems like Apple is doing something with remote view controllers with their 12 Days of Christmas app, which could imply they're trying to test it as much as possible in a live context.
  - masklinn 14y ago
    Oh? Do you have more info on that?
    - nicholassmith 14y ago
      Unfortunately not, I'll do some digging on it tomorrow when I have time.
6thSigma 14y ago
> Fortunately, it looks like Apple will finally address this in the future Ha, sorry, reminds me of that Samsung commercial. We're going to get that in the next one.. right?
- redial 14y ago
  Yes, because android has always been buttery smooth. And the battery life has always been excellent. The density of the screen was impressive from day one. Things change.
pi18n 14y ago
Launching other apps can be done by any app right now, but the app package needs some info saying the app is able to handle a certain data type or open a certain URL protocol. I am an Objective-C developer and I love the SDKs on the iPhone, but I am just so tired of Apple's bullshit regarding using our devices the way we want to. I'm tired of waiting for them to enable basic features like phone number black/whitelists. My next device will be a Nexus. Then I can run apps in the background other than music, share data between apps, sideload apps from third parties, run a mobile terminal, run mobile scripting languages, and basically be free to use my hardware as I'd like.
- nicholassmith 14y ago
  "I'm tired of waiting for them to enable basic features like phone number black/whitelists." Keep in mind that's a basic feature for you, not necessarily for all. I wouldn't use it, so I'd prefer Apple to work on X/Y/Z feature instead. Feature priority is hard to work out at the best of times, because no matter what gets picked someone will be disappointed.
  - lesterbuck 14y ago
    My long term interest is in Android, but I switched to an iPhone a year ago to follow that ecosystem, too. The first thing I did was buy three call blocking apps from the App Store, none of which worked at all. After reading all the horror stories about the vaunted App Store approval process to protect innocent iPhone users from bad apps, I realized it was all marketing FUD. When an app has 99% bad reviews, all saying "doesn't work" and it stays in the app store, that is Apple fraud.
    - nicholassmith 14y ago
      Developer community demanded Apple reduced their ban hammer swing, they did. They get a lot of crap that slips through the net because of it, however when complaints are made they seem to respond, the problem being a review isn't a complaint. Well, the problem being Apple isn't draconian enough now really.

by w0utert 14y ago

jvzr 14y ago

I was going to say the same things. Hopefully, there has been some serious work done on iOS 7 and it'll probably address most of the OP's concerns. However, I do hope they introduce none of these customization shenanigans. I don't care for widgets (nor do I want another icon or thing I cannot remove from my homescreen). If the base OS is sufficiently good UI-wise, there is no reason ever to need to customize its looks besides the wallpaper (e.g. OS X).

knightni 14y ago
I disagree - widgets are enormously important to me, and were the deciding factor in my choosing an android phone. I'm quite forgetful, and I have a tendency to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others. Widgets allow me to display important information on my home screen that will be shown to me every time I look at the phone. This means that I can have a list of (for example) upcoming birthdays on my phone that I see over and over again, enough that I will eventually see the reminder at a point when I am in a position to do something about it. Alarms are useless by comparison, because I will inevitably be busy with something else when they go off. Calendars/todo apps are equally useless to me, because they require me to remember to open up an app all the time. I realise my use case is relatively niche, but I imagine there's a lot of different niche users out there that benefit from customisability.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  I do the same thing. I have a birthday calendar and todo list on my home screen, it's immensely helpful. Even more so now that I can also have it on my lock screen.
- taligent 14y ago
  Upcoming birthdays and other calendar events appear on my iPhone in the lock/notification screen so no different to Android in that respect. And as of iOS6 it automatically syncs birthdays with Facebook.
  - knightni 14y ago
    My understanding was that at least on the lock screen there was no easy way to distinguish between different calendars - I want birthday reminders to show up persistently for at least a week before the event, which is obviously undesirable for most other events. If the lock screen gets/has that functionality, I'm not sure what the real difference between that and a widget is - except that mine displays on the home screen while yours displays on the lock screen.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    And those things only work in cases where Apple has made special agreements. It's going to look silly when Facebook and Twitter are no longer things and iOS rushed to integrate them instead of just opening an API to enable it.
- jvzr 14y ago
  But see, you have analyzed that you desperately needed some kind of birthday widget and that iOS didn't suit your particular needs. You switched over or went directly to Android. That's fine, you have an alternative and you seem happy with it. However, I despise such things. I've analyzed that I wouldn't stand using Android for those reasons, and that I'm better off with iOS. I go with Apple's motto: "there's an app for that".
  - revelation 14y ago
vacri 14y ago
If the base OS is sufficiently good UI-wise, there is no reason ever to need to customize its looks besides the wallpaper I take it you share Jobs' opinion on clothes? Same jeans, sneakers, turtleneck every day. Hey, it's perfectly functional, why would anyone want to vary things or look different? I mean, everyone has the same use-case, right?
- jvzr 14y ago
  Actually, now that you mention it, I pretty much wear the same-looking clothes all year long. I have one brand and a favorite cut for each of my garments and I stick to it. I even have 20 pairs of identical black socks for easy selection in the morning. I like how iOS and OS X force us into one particular set of minimalistic UI. I despise skeuomorphism and I'm eager to see it go away on iOS. But I realize others may want to customize their OS, and for that they have to be grateful to have alternatives, namely Windows/Unix and Android/WP.

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago

I agree, though I think some of the "not all Android applications look like crap" type stuff is just pointing out that some of the things people have used to beat Android with in the past are no longer true which is fair enough.

buster 14y ago

Well, there are quite beautiful homescreens and widgets for android. You don't have to use them but i would say that iPhone users are just missing out on something. Sure, you are used to just take what Apple gives you and praise that but i couldn't.. I want high customizability and i love to change the entire phone setup when i get bored by the current setup.. or try out a new home screen once in a while. It's painless and fun for me to do :) But surely, what really is missing on iOS is the whole intent/sharing system. It's just painful to try to interact between several apps on my iPad. Btw. One of the more beautiful homescreens is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tsf.shell https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tsf.shell Or widgets: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.levelup.beautifulwidgets https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.levelup.be... Those are things that i simply can't get on iOS and i'm used to it. I want that on my mobile.

taligent 14y ago
And both of those are quintessentially Android features. I doubt you will ever see them implemented like that on iOS without jailbreaking. I personally don't want anything like that. I would rather Apple just allow widgets in the notifications section and have live icons.
pithon 14y ago
Also: http://www.reddit.com/r/androidthemes/ http://www.reddit.com/r/androidthemes/
- buster 14y ago
  That's a good point and demonstrates very well how far you can customize.
mannkind 14y ago
Those two examples... wow. A cluttered, unusable homescreen (is a ridiculous 3D cylinder of icons really an option?) and a weather widget where most of the text is unreadable.
- 14y ago

greggman 14y ago

I haven't read the article but I was an iPhone3 for a year, nexus 1 for a year, nexus s for a year and now iPhone 4S for a year. Things I still miss: I still miss that android apps can download in the background so for example when I wake up I the morning any new podcasts I'm subscribed to are already on the phone. Contrast to iOS6 where I have to remember to manually run the app. Which generally means I only run it just as I'm about to get in the car. I then sit in my entry way for 2-6 minutes waiting for my podcast app to download I miss that apps can register for more events and act on them. For example any app can register to get an event when a new photo is saved. It can then upload, in the background, that photo. That means I can install one Flickr app, one g+ app and one fb app and the photos get uploaded to all 3 services no matter which app I use to take the photo. Contrast to ios6 where either every photo app has to have built in uploading options for every service I could possibly want. Or, I have to manually run the specific app for each service. I miss auto app updating. I don't have as many apps as most of my friends on my iPhone but it seems like every day or every other day there's a number on the app store bugging me to update stuff. having to manually update is a distraction, chore, and annoyance I don't need. Of course I miss being able to choose various default apps. I want Camera+ to be my default camera. I want Google maps to be my default maps. I want gmail to be my default mail app. I want a different apps to be my default music player and video player. I want chrome to be my default browser. I miss being able to customize my desktop and lock screen. Not just adding widgets but changing it to use other apps. See http://slidescreenhome.com http://slidescreenhome.com as one example. I miss geeky things like being able to run an ssh tunnel in one app and use that tunnel in another app. That said I'm still on iPhone. There's still plenty of things I like about iPhone over Android. I don't see myself switching back for at least a few more generations.

lanelio 14y ago
"I haven't read the article but..." So it's come to this on HN...
- Tyrant505 14y ago
  No.. it was just stated instead of not.

vacri 14y ago

Oh and of course you can 'customize everything' and here you have 4 examples of the most ugly homescreens I have ever seen on a mobile phone. Good grief, you speak of personlisation like it's a bug and not a feature. I personally hate the iOS window-dressing. You have this sleek-looking bit of hardware, but the OS looks plastic and Fisher-Price, with safe and chunky buttons to give to your kid with no sharp edges. The way you speak, it sounds like you would deny me my preference for something different because you think it's ugly. What about those who don't think the default skins look good? Why isn't it a good feature that we can customise the way things look? I really don't understand the Apple-spawned fanboy cult that considers personalisation to be a bad thing - especially since they once had a successful marketing campaign based around personalising your hardware with the coloured macs.

Ntrails 14y ago
I am happy with the apple default. I would not be happy with the default android layout, and I have tried to be. I don't spend my time changing my desktop items. I don't customise my chrome borders, fiddle with rainmeter, etc. I don't even change my desktop background from the first one I got years and years ago. This may not be a very "hacker" attitude, but for me I just want function by default. Personalisation is never a bad thing, but having a worse default is. Not wanting to faff with your display to get something acceptable is entirely within reason. In each case it is a choice, and the ability to personalise your screen is very much a subjective benefit.
- bpatrianakos 14y ago
  I'm totally with you on this. On both my iPhone and Macbook I don't change the desktop background or much else from the day I get it. There are other things like the terminal colors and such that I do but for the most part I leave the design alone. Now, customization is obviously very important to people and if it is then that's a great reason to switch to a platform other than iOS. But is it a reason that iOS is worse or better than some other platform? Absolutely not. There is room in this world for things to just be different rather than better or worse.
w0utert 14y ago

mmahemoff 14y ago

Yes, inter-app communication is a major difference for developers. On iOS, apps will say "Supports Twitter and Facebook" and the developers have hand-written the integrations; on Android, the app integrates with whatever the user has installed and the developer does no work at all to integrate with any specific service or app. So it's a win for developers as well as users.

reidmain 14y ago
Twitter and Facebook is integrated at a OS level with iOS. A few lines of code gets me access to the user's accounts (with their permission of course).
- mmahemoff 14y ago
  Bad examples :). Try Buffer and App.Net instead.
  - reidmain 14y ago
    So what happens in Android with those apps? Your app opens your App.net client of choice?
    - mmahemoff 14y ago
      A bit more generic than that; there's no global setting where user says "this is my preferred App.Net app". When user hits Share in any app (many apps provide such a feature), a menu appears with all available apps user might want to share to. Any app can opt in to be in the menu, based on MIME type of what's being shared. http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/02/share-with-intents.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/02/share-with-in...
      - reidmain 14y ago
        Does it take you out of the app or bring up a part of the other app which you use to share and then dismiss and you are back exactly where you were before you attempted to share?

Cor 14y ago

"Oh and of course you can 'customize everything' and here you have 4 examples of the most ugly homescreens I have ever seen on a mobile phone." Agreed. I really don't like the look of most Android customisations. I think default Android is pretty gorgeous, though. My homescreen currently looks like this - http://i1.minus.com/iidfIgCTZsXEX.png http://i1.minus.com/iidfIgCTZsXEX.png The only thing I've added is the widget: everything else is stock. I'm very happy with the way it looks.

MichaelJW 14y ago
What is that widget? It looks great!
- Cor 14y ago
  You can get it here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.pooley.betaWeather#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDIxMiwiZnIucG9vbGV5LmJldGFXZWF0aGVyIl0 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.pooley.beta.... You'll also need to install the 'Ultimate Clock Widget' app from here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.vineetsirohi.customwidget&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImluLnZpbmVldHNpcm9oaS5jdXN0b213aWRnZXQiXQ. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.vineetsiroh.... Enjoy!
  - bane 14y ago
    The coolest bit is that I can install both of these on my phone and tablet (which is back at home and not with me) right now via the links you just shared without having to interact with either device.
    - micampe 14y ago
      What's funny is that this feature gets often pointed out as one of the cool Android exclusives, but iOS has it too: you just need to turn on Automatic Downloads in the store settings, it works for apps as well as media and books purchased from the store. It's more limited, in that it will download all purchases made on any other device (or iTunes) connected to the same account, but it seems like very few people are aware of it.

sigkill 14y ago

>Android on the Nexus 4 is better in almost every aspect et al I assume he made that kind of statements because previously his opinion of android was the buggy and extreme unresponsive early builds.

masklinn 14y ago

> iOS 6 already has infrastructure in place to allow for remote view controllers that (in theory) should allow any application to register itself to handle certain data and events. For those who want more information on that, http://oleb.net/blog/2012/10/remote-view-controllers-in-ios-6/ http://oleb.net/blog/2012/10/remote-view-controllers-in-ios-... (note: it's a 3-part series). As far as I understand, it doesn't provide for an application "register[ing] itself to handler certain data and events", which would probably be an extension to UIActivityView and UIActivity[0]. Remove View Controllers provide two features of interest, one of which could work with UIActivity for sharing: * An application or framework providing views to an other one (said view could be invoked by a UIActivity of some sort, so that the Facebook application would provide a "Share on Facebook" remote view and the corresponding activity, a sharing application would invoke the activity view, then display the correct remote view upon selection by the user) * Isolated cross-process communication between the embedding application and the embedded view, which allows different security settings (and thus things like JIT-ed UIWebView, or more simply a twitter remote viewcontroller being able to use the data the Twitter app has access to without leaking it to third parties) [0] http://oleb.net/blog/2012/09/the-state-of-sharing-in-ios-6/ http://oleb.net/blog/2012/09/the-state-of-sharing-in-ios-6/

nicholassmith 14y ago
Interestingly it seems like Apple is doing something with remote view controllers with their 12 Days of Christmas app, which could imply they're trying to test it as much as possible in a live context.
- masklinn 14y ago
  Oh? Do you have more info on that?
  - nicholassmith 14y ago
    Unfortunately not, I'll do some digging on it tomorrow when I have time.

6thSigma 14y ago

> Fortunately, it looks like Apple will finally address this in the future Ha, sorry, reminds me of that Samsung commercial. We're going to get that in the next one.. right?

redial 14y ago
Yes, because android has always been buttery smooth. And the battery life has always been excellent. The density of the screen was impressive from day one. Things change.

pi18n 14y ago

Launching other apps can be done by any app right now, but the app package needs some info saying the app is able to handle a certain data type or open a certain URL protocol. I am an Objective-C developer and I love the SDKs on the iPhone, but I am just so tired of Apple's bullshit regarding using our devices the way we want to. I'm tired of waiting for them to enable basic features like phone number black/whitelists. My next device will be a Nexus. Then I can run apps in the background other than music, share data between apps, sideload apps from third parties, run a mobile terminal, run mobile scripting languages, and basically be free to use my hardware as I'd like.

nicholassmith 14y ago
"I'm tired of waiting for them to enable basic features like phone number black/whitelists." Keep in mind that's a basic feature for you, not necessarily for all. I wouldn't use it, so I'd prefer Apple to work on X/Y/Z feature instead. Feature priority is hard to work out at the best of times, because no matter what gets picked someone will be disappointed.
- lesterbuck 14y ago
  My long term interest is in Android, but I switched to an iPhone a year ago to follow that ecosystem, too. The first thing I did was buy three call blocking apps from the App Store, none of which worked at all. After reading all the horror stories about the vaunted App Store approval process to protect innocent iPhone users from bad apps, I realized it was all marketing FUD. When an app has 99% bad reviews, all saying "doesn't work" and it stays in the app store, that is Apple fraud.
  - nicholassmith 14y ago
    Developer community demanded Apple reduced their ban hammer swing, they did. They get a lot of crap that slips through the net because of it, however when complaints are made they seem to respond, the problem being a review isn't a complaint. Well, the problem being Apple isn't draconian enough now really.